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A Good Beer Blog (98 items)

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October 26, 2008
22:59
Worthington's White Shield - an India ...
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Worthington's White Shield - an India Pale Ale and CAMRA's champion bottled beer for 2006.
October 11, 2008
21:01
Sol – the original sunshine
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Sol – the original sunshine Mexican beer.
July 23, 2008
13:03
More Ways To Get To A Good Beer Blog
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My gracious server masters are the most gracious server masters ever. I just got an email that they have gifted me with two more URLs which make a little more sense than the one I have been living with for about 4 years now. You now can also get your daily dose of A Good Beer Blog at agoodbeerblog.ca and agoodbeerblog.com.
Nobody has server masters like my server masters.
July 22, 2008
10:06
The Hieronymi Were Here
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So beer writers Stan and Daria and family were here getting a break from the camper on their world beer tour 2008. As it turned out, so were Steve from Beau's and John o' Church-key. Between them the lads drove 500 km to get here and as much to get home - nothing compared, however, to the Hieronymi land cruiser which hit the 10,000 mile mark yesterday. And, after hours of great beer and some good chow I threw together, I came away from what I will call the first Kingston Symposium on Craft Brewing realizing I pretty much know nothing about beer. Zippo.
Hanging around with such people of the beer is always a great education but listening to two such knowledgeable beer thinkers as Stan and Daria (who is also a recent winner on Jeopardy) over a whole evening with two of Canada's most interesting young brewers was pretty amazing. Not to go blow by blow through the beers but I shared some Ontarians including our local Barley Day's Wind and Sail Dark, some Stuart's Natural and made some fairly snazzy scallops in a pan with a slug of Wellington Dark. Good Ontario and Quebec craft cheeses also shared the table.
We talked about beer price and value, the regulatory challenges of the Ontario market and the Canadian border as well as the opportunities a province that is trying hard to catch up to our southern neighbours provides. We also poured bottles of Steve and John's brews including Beau's flagship kolsche and Church-key's West Coast IPA - as well as half year cellared bottles of Bog Water and Lactese Falcon, that beer that begs to be next to a rib-eye. Each of these showed really well and, in their comparison, begged the question as to which better expressed Ontario-ness: the traditional Algonquin Park canoe trip invocating bog myrtle or the funky blue cheese tang of the beer of the 22nd century. I just made that up. I am sure John will pick it up as the LT's catch phrase.
To finish, we popped the tangy spicy dry and quite fascinating Fuego del Otono, a seasonal chestnut beer which is also very under-priced from Jolly Pumpkin. Stan and Daria had passed Dexter on a Saturday when the brewery was not open so it was fair to include it in their year-long continent hopping search for the essence of global local beer. By the way, that last beer is one of the ones that make me think there should be a web based auction for craft beer where beer lovers could set out what they would pay for a beer. If Ron at Jolly Pumpkin would set me aside a mixed case of beer like Fuego del Otono for pick up when I am in the neighbourhood, I would definitely pay $11.99 or a bit more compared to the $8.99 I paid for this one last fall at the ever excellent Bello Vino of Ann Arbor. Other beers of the moment might not get such a price boost from the set you own auction, if my suspicions are correct.
In the end, one in the morning came far too soon and, as with the best gatherings like this, I came away having added understanding as well as happily convinced in how little I still really know. There is so much to learn about good beer. For one thing, I now crave New Glarus Spotted Cow and may have to drive to Wisconsin just to get me some more.
July 20, 2008
22:15
An Australian Complains About The State Of Beer
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This opinion piece in The Australian today speaks as much to the state of beer as the state of writing in newspapers in Australia. This extended quotation of James Jeffery's writing is remarkable both for its coarseness and its plainness about the moronic nature of the cult of globalized ice cold macro-lager that is at large in his land:
...danger awaits if your tastebuds haven't been completely cauterised and you want to branch out and drink something that might make your tongue dance while laying waste to your brain. Stand by for the local piss prefect to accuse you of drinking yuppie beer or worse still, boutique beer, which makes it sound like it's got more than a touch of handbag about it. Talk about the glories of kolsch, porter, bock, pale ale or Trappist booze and you may as well say you've joined the local eunuch guild. But the masters of the beer universe aren't exactly a bunch of blouses who sit around with their noses and pinkies in the air. The Germans are responsible for a whole spectrum of beers of weeping complexity and subtlety, all brewed according to a 500-year-old set of commandments, yet still managed to invent the Beer Hall Putsch. The English are behind such towering achievements as Theakston's Old Peculiar and the perfection of the soccer riot. The Belgians invented beer that inspires poetry yet goes off like a liquid depth charge. And the Czechs, who gave us the unparalleled gift of pilsner, are probably the greatest brewers of them all, yet still found time to manfully shrug off fascism, communism, Neville Chamberlain and a shortage of vowels.
Remarkable. Rude yet accurate. Thick yet inspiring. We should speak so plainly in all things that affect us, not just the pleasures of life including beer but all those things that bear upon us, that restrict or do worse than fail to enlighten.
July 19, 2008
14:24
What Do You Drink When It Is Stinking Hot?
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When I was a wee laddie back in Halifax and it was pushing 90F...or 33C...one pal inevitably declared "it's a drinker!" The undergrad group I hung out with - now doctors and lawyers and such as Waylon put it - considered drinking beer an activity in itself like, say, going to the movies, a dance, bowling or heading out in a herd to annihilate an all you can eat Chinese buffet. But on a day like today there was none of that. It was all ice + bucket + beer + porch.
These days, however, I am much more restrained - by choice and circumstance. A BBQ and guests and planning are needed which means a lot more work than the shared rental's porch ever required. I'm also inclined to different tipples that the ever present case of Oland's Ex of a couple of decades back. On a day like this now all I really crave is cold hefeweizen. It's too hot even for a hoppy IPA as far as I am concerned. Other than that, we are talking sweet vermouth and a whack of soda - the drink I would drink on the surface of the sun.
What about you? What is the one thing that really works when it is stinking hot, either beer or that other thing called "not beer"?
July 17, 2008
20:23
Review: A Year With BeerAdvocate Magazine
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I got my July issue of BeerAdvocate magazine in the mail today. It marks the conclusion of my first year of subscription and serves as a good reminder to think about what the magazine has accomplished and what it represents from my wee northern perspective. And it gives me something to type about on a summer evening without baseball when I wrenched my back - meaning no beer as the little pills do their work. So, in no particular order:
- I like the tone the Alstroms take even though the index-pinkie salute stuff gets a bit silly. But they take both their beer and the writing quality seriously while being married to no brewer, style or region. The magazine celebrates the omnibibe - which is something we all should support.
- The selection of authors is good but, like other beer magazines, suffers from being a somewhat fixed list. This may just be a reality of how they have to contract with their authors to ensure they have enough quality print and, honestly, is no big whoop. I read Andy Crouch first, followed by Don Russell and then the beer reviews.
- And the Alstroms are polite even with the index-pinkie salute stuff. When a photo of mine ended up in the magazine, they were gracious in response. I was even a bit surprised by the email response to some helpful hints I offered which made the experience quite pleasant, far from what I first expected.
- I am not thrilled with the Canadian price, more than twice the US subscription even with the loonie at parity. Why must this be? Why must I spend two extra six packs of good ale per year compared to you just there over the border?
- Complaints? I find there's too much about beer and food. Not that I don't care but I really don't care that much. For me, beer and food pairing is a far smaller niche than, say, home brewing but gets much more of the coverage. Is it just the pr0n-ability of food photos? I would leave it at Sean Paxton's excellent monthly column. And the news section at the front is too often out of date, given the reality of blogs over-telling the same stories at least a month before.
- Perhaps an odd observation, their selection of advertisers is good, informative, seemingly loyal to the cause and also balanced between all sectors of the industry. Unlike other beer mags, there are not too many - something which may affect their bottom line but actually may be part of the overall plan. I find they add to the total mag experience.
- I wish there was a regular column featuring great pubs, focusing on just one bar a month. The city scene section is fine but its 25 words or less approach to describing a bar is a bit too haiku or classified ad.
- The beer reviews are great. I like how they are fair to a good imported lager and will share disappointment with the odd over-hyped special release. I like how they praise the beer that rates "B" rather than bemoan how it isn't an "A". Plus, I like the way reviews of two or three by a single brewer are often lumped together to give a sense of their range.
All in all, BeerAdvoca-zine is a strong addition to the global beery discourse. Best issue was the Scandinavian one. It goes some way to replace the lack of a CAMRA in North America. Is it too continental? Actually indicative of nowhere? Maybe the Alstroms needs to consider as it moves ahead somehow spinning off regional versions or local inserts to replicate those fabulous CAMRA branch quarterlies we all crave. I know I have not renewed, in case anyone brings that up, but I likely will soon - you should, too.
So, what is the emoticon for the index-pinkie salute? Maybe: ~!..!
July 16, 2008
19:40
Are These The Dog Days Of Beerdom?
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As you can imagine, news that MilCoo is moving to Chicago is about as interesting as the impending formation of In-Bud. Yawn. There must be something more interesting in beer going on:
- A group in Toronto has formed called Cask! to agitate for more of what they want. Great news...though I am not much a joiner-inner. I'd have to create a group called Couch and Backyard! to best express my inner beery voice.
- There's that guy in Australia who was dropping a grand a week on beer but that's just sad. About as sad as the Ohio county fair that seems to have a beer garden that doesn't serve beer.
- Who knew Chicago had beer riots?
- China makes 22% of the world's beer. Sounds impressive but with only 19.86% of the population, they are really international brewing slackers.
- A man was fired for selling someone of legal drinking age two beers.
- Good news from Utica as F.X. Matt must be turning things around after the fire in May with the roll out of their new Saranac Irish Ale.
Not the most exiting stretch for beer news, admittedly, but at least I am not reduced, like Stonch, to working that valuable and rich seam of pop social anthropology revealed in his recent studies of Carling or 1970s keg mild: "I hadn't tasted Carling in years. I haven't missed it. It tastes a bit like soda water - nothing offensive, just . . . nothing." Gold.
July 15, 2008
18:31
Will I Drop By A Brewerianists Convention?
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I always wonder about this sort of thing but I may have to go this time if I have good manners. It appears my city will soon host the national celebration of beer stuff, according to our local Whig-Standard:
The Limestone Brewerianist Club - the name means a collector of beer bottles or beer-related merchandise and advertising, and the local chapter has about 20 members - will host the 29th annual convention of the Collectors of Canadian Brewery Advertising on the second weekend of August. As part of the activities, people can bring in their beer-themed products, from bottles and cans to openers and old ads, to find out what they are worth.
Now I am not in any sense a brewerianist - but I do like a decent antique as much as the next guy. My favorite local pub is a virtual museum of the stuff and I do know someone with a home basement filled with his father's collection gathered over his years of being a brewery driver. I suppose my favorite sort of beer related stuff would be openers as they are both still entirely useful and not breakable. I have a few nice ones that are likely half a century old with brand names long lost to the Canadian beer scene.
But what should I really be looking for if I want to snab something special? A 1800's geueze glass perhaps? That kölschkranz with a fill set of glassware, as illustrated, that not one of you has bought for me...yet? What would you want if you could find it?
July 14, 2008
19:25
Africa: Draught, Namibia Breweries, Windhoek, Namibia
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Is this my first African beer? I know I have had Kenya's Tusker but never posted about it. I also know that I have yet to have a Nigerian Guinness. You know - the one Ron buys for the train trip home. I received this and a few other's by Windhoek's Namibia Breweries from our pals at Roland and Russell and something about this beer seemed to fit for baseball's home run derby night: only 4%, hopefully as grainy tasty as the sibling I had the other night and resplendent of that great Namibian baseballing history.
The beer pours a medium pine gold with a huge billowy white head. Plenty of fragrant green grass and fruit on the nose. In the mouth, this is a very soft and restrained take on a pale lager with less of a steely German hop profile than I would have expected. Lower carbonation than I might have thought as well. Some stockiness amongst the grain as well as a bit of apple. I quite like this, a real session lager with a good level of flavour. BAers are a little unkind.
July 13, 2008
20:56
Following The Hieronymi Around The World
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I have to admit that beer blogging has given me far more than I have ever given it. Through beer blogging I have electronically met a particularly rich seam of the most gracious and generous folk in the English-speaking world. One of the finest is, of course, our pal Stan Hieronymus, author of Brew Like A Monk as well as a bazillion articles on brew - not to mention the blogger-in-chief at Appellation Beer.
Stan and the family are on a round-the-world tour trying all the local beer they can meet and next week I have the honour of hosting them for supper (and maybe more if the RV fits) as the south-easter Ontario representative of all things beery. I have put away a few fine local beers - including that growler or two I plan to snab at Sackets Harbor NY, my actual most local brewer as the crow flies. We'll be over there next Sunday for the return of the annual 1875s vintage base ball game. I have invited a couple of interesting brewers to join in a small backyard symposium but am still a little at loose ends, trying to figure out how to make the moment worthy and fun.
Well, lo and behold, I just found an extra way to do the right thing by Stan - they're keeping a blog of the trip called The Slow Travelers. More about big roadside attractions and less about about beer but that is good. It will help us get a sense of Stan, the family and my pleasant duties of their host. As far as I can tell, I need to make a giant paper mache dinosaur and place it by the curb to truly make the date a hit! We may have to see about that one.
July 12, 2008
20:01
An Update On The State Of Beer In Ireland
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The LA Times has an interesting article today on the changing state of Guinness in the beer drinking life of Ireland:
Ireland is still the second-biggest beer-drinking market in the world, after the Czech Republic. But beer consumption has declined 15% since 2001. Rural pubs were closing last year at the rate of more than one a day, victims of high taxes, increasing supermarket sales and a nationwide smoking ban that went into effect in 2004. Add to that an explosion in demand for wine and high-end coffee here, and Guinness now sells more beer in Nigeria - "there's a drop of greatness in every man," the ads for the extra-robust, 7.5% alcohol foreign extra stout tell Nigeria's receptive males - than it does on the Emerald Isle.
About 20 years ago, my brother came back from a visit to the relatives in Scotland complaining about the jukebox in the family's ancestral village playing "Born in the USA" more than any other tune. We live in the globalized market and even Guinness is not unassailable in its own home town. We seldom talk in the beer chattering classes about the role of large scale imports - other than perhaps periodically mocking Stella - preferring to debate macro v. micro, factory v. craft.
But it is generally through these imports that people first meet diversity in flavour. One wonders whether a beer culture that is homogeneous in its demand for Guinness is any more interesting than one that is solely focused on industrialized pale lager, even with those hundred or more labels pretending that the lagers represent difference. One wonders if some of the displaced Guinness brewery staff may spin off a few new local breweries, too.
July 10, 2008
21:01
BrewDog Is Encouraging You To Do Bad Bad Things
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What a burden it must be to be a firm with cheeky humour in a land...known for its cheeky humour. What would Billy Connelly say about this new move by the clearly irresponsible madmen in charge of this brewery?!?
Earlier this year BrewDog, the award-winning microbrewery, faced being blacklisted by advertising industry watchdogs for allegedly encouraging antisocial behaviour in its marketing and promotions. And James Watt and Martin Dickie, the two former students who formed the company last year, have now been accused of irresponsibly promoting Tokyo, a brew with potentially "devastating" consequences for health.
I think the real problem here is that two former students are now operating a business. Everyone knows that former students end up in middle management and are destined to be bean pushers...perhaps like Dr Richard Simpson, Labour's public health spokesman (but he's surely a very clever fellow) not to mention Dr Bruce Ritson, the chairman of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (another generally smart laddie) who has declared there was no place for the 12% beer BrewDog has placed on the market. None! No place because Scotland is the home of whisky... which is, you know, at least 40%. Makes me want to pop a BrewDog right now.
So I did. BrewDog's RipTide is a 8% stout - meaning two would be insane - is described on the label as a "twisted merciless stout" but I will not get into a contortionist's position and abandon all hope in the Lord's grace. No, I will just treat it as a beer. It pours a deep mahogany with a mocha head and, upon the well placed snort, gives off a yeasty espresso impresso. A dry chocolate cream of a brew with plenty of roasty notes, a bit o' fig and burnt date with plenty of minty hops keeking oot doon theyr-ah. BAers bark "B+!"
Braw. Even bonnie. A stout worthy of Paw Broon.
July 09, 2008
21:27
Do You Belong To The Cult Of Beer?
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Classes of beer. Not beer styles but classes: macro, craft, premium, discount, import. There seems to be another one - cult:
"I love the stuff," he said, comparing it to Molson Canadian. "It's got a lot of flavor and a bit of hoppiness. It's not too heavy or malty." Being unavailable is often a hallmark of cult beers. It means you don't know what you're missing. Coors was a legendary cult brand until wider distribution took away the novelty. Anchor Steam, on the other hand, seemed to lose none of its flavor by busting beyond San Francisco.
Heh? Wheh? This is too confusing. I thought that it was premium beer that was macro with attitude. I suppose it just depends on which attitute. The fundamental difference between PBR and Heineken Light is based entirely on the purchaser. The one is cult, the other premium and both think the each other is a jerk. And it is not the same as cult craft, of course - those unavailable triple stouts thicken to a heavy syrup made in batches of 27 bottles only by elves in small villages beyond the next valley which the uncorrectable few claim are the greatest thing since BBQ, croquet or the wheel. That is a bit cult of the cult if you ask me. And a far cry from something that reminds you of Molson Canadian.
Me? I am still sticking with good or bad. Or maybe either tasty or not. That'll do.
July 08, 2008
19:30
All We Want Is A Free Beer Market...
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...or is it a beer free market? Not so sure. But one Ontario man - the interestingly named Mr. Forward - is. He has started a petition to free Ontarians from the two-headed monster that is the government owned LCBO and the macro-brewery owned Beer Store:
His petition says: "We the people of Ontario demand that The Ontario Government immediately remove the monopoly currently enjoyed by The Beer Store. The people of Ontario demand that the Ontario government allow beer to be sold and distributed through existing and regular grocery and food store channels." Forward said he started the petition after reading a three-day series in the Toronto Star on the three largest brewers – Labatt, Molson and Sleeman – owning the store that sells $2.5 billion worth of beer a year in Ontario. The brewers, in turn, are owned by some of the largest foreign multinational brewers in the world: Belgium's InBevSA, the American Molson Coors Brewing and Sapporo of Japan.
It is quite the thing that government regulation is actually protecting multinationals - though, to be fair, scant years ago all three (not as illustrated) were Canadian firms. I suppose the most annoying thing, though, for the local beer lover is that craft brewers have to pay an extra premium in Ontario for shelf space owned and administered by either their massive competitors or the agents of the state - the biggest buyer of booze in the world as well as the provincial regulator. So they have to pay their government or their competition a fee for the right to ply their trade. Which also means we the consumer pay more - and I when I say "we", you know, I really mean "you" but I would mean "we" if I didn't actually organize my life to buy direct at a fine craft brewery...or at a store in the nearby states...or rely on samples and, err, my own home brewing. All the same "SHAME!!"
I signed up. You can too.
July 07, 2008
19:18
New TV Show On Beer In The Works
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Evan Rail may have spilled a few beans over the weekend in a post updating the Prague beer scene:
I’ll be working with a crew shooting a Discovery Channel television special on beer, which, back home, will include brewing stars like Sam Calagione from the offensively good Dogfish Head and Professor Charlie Bamforth from my old alma mater, the University of California, Davis.
Fantastic news that Stan wrote about this morning from somewhere on the Canadian Prairies. I am convinced that if there is TV station about sports fishing, there is a TV station all about beer just waiting for its creation. Evan is working on the next step towards that good day, that good good day. You know...checking my emails...I passed on the lad's name to the Discovery channel folk back in early June! Hey, I was sure they were asking him to give a reference for me! But I have to accept that Evan's like that smarter, better dancer pal in high school with the nicer car...except he writes books for CAMRA gets his beer articles in The New York Times.¹ Me? I know how to say "my butt is itchy" in Slovak. Going by the info I got from the production company (you know, the ones who wanted to speak to Evan) it looks like a single episode in a series on various basic goods.
I can't find any further information Google-esque so add any information you may have in the comments. Or just spill more beans, Evan.
¹[Ed.: What I read: "I’d love to chat with you about your interest in beer – and find out more about your blog. I’d also like to know if you have an email for Evan Rail." What it means: "I’d love have an email for Evan Rail."]
July 06, 2008
17:04
Ontario: Stuart's Natural, Scotch Irsh Brewing, Lanark
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Out and about on Friday I was quite happy to see this stubby at the LCBO, a cousin to the porter, imperial stout and IPA made by the Scotch Irish branch of Heritage Brewing. I was even more happy to see that it was a 3.7% ordinary bitter for $2.20 a bottle.
It pours a bright caramel-amber with a rich off-white head that resolves to a thick rim. In the mouth, there is a bit more of a carbonation zip than I would have thought an ordinary bitter might provide but it is relatively still compared to most ales you run into. The real pleasure in the beer is the amount of raisin-nutty grainy body that is packed into such a light brew. 95% of 5% beers in Canada would be thinner than this. The bitterness is in the English rather than American style with no room for citrus or pine or any other room freshener scent. Just a sweat (and cloy) cutting black tea jag.
Entirely delightful take on a too rare style usually reserved for thoughtful home brewers these days. If this is the same beer reviewed by three beer advocates, they have missed the point.
July 04, 2008
13:14
Session 17: Anti-Seasonal Drinking or...I Like Macros!
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This month's version of the session is, a bit confusingly to me, about "anti-seasonal drinking." As I like everything all the time what can this mean to me? There is no season of beer to me. I am a beerophile and a freewheeling omnibibe without any book of days telling what goes in the glass. But there is something else about me, a little something about which Christina over at Beer 4 Chicks seems to have stolen my thunder:
So, anti-seasonal beer drinking? When its cold out and the skies are gray...I keep one beer in the fridge for particularly depressive episodes: the beer that will wake me up from even my deepest winter doldrums - one single bottle of Budweiser. There, I said it...effing sue me. One taste of it and I'm 16 (err... 21) again and I'm back sitting on my floating dock on our lake, with Richard Marx on the radio, and Coppertone, and my boyfriend Rob trying to get me to skinny dip...
OK, it's not that I want to skinny dip with her Dicky Marx era guy but I do want to drink macro brew. On a hot day. On a day when it is not hot but the moment or the company or the supply seems right. I like it in a boat. I have never had it with a goat. I like good macro beer. Even beer that is really beer flavoured water can sometimes hit the spot. I have even studied them. I also like them ice cold when it is as hot as the surface of the sun or right in the middle of a great pick up soccer game with old pals - and if that means I taste little as they go down I really don't care that much. It's just beer sometimes and, frankly, maybe not enough of the time.
But just to be contrarian against the counter flow, I will not have a macro today. No. No, I will not.
July 03, 2008
23:16
Saison: Red Sky At Night, Clipper City, Baltimore, USA
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Have I set up a saison category? I can't keep up with these things but if I did create a new category for these posts I would want it to be saison. I was sure it was going to be the next big thing back around 2005 but adding hops to the hops that just had been added to the hoppy beer seemed to be the way to go. Yet, in these troubled times, couldn't a simple pale ale with plenty of grainy appled pale malt goodness with a hint of white pepper in with the cream yeast be what we are looking for after all?
Clipper City Brewing of Baltimore thought it was just the thing, adding this saison to its Heavy Seas lineup. This 7.5% ale pours a light gold with a whack of floaties under egg white clinging foam. Bubblegum and banana on the snort. A nice lemon tang with some green grass, a bit of wheaty cream and a hint of nutmeg and white pepper along with the golden delicious apple malt. Not tremendously complex but thoughtful, balanced and refreshing. Fairly generous BAer support but I might be a notch more approving.
July 02, 2008
22:05
Update On The Economics of Microbrewing in Scotland
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There is a good article in Glasgow's Sunday Herald this week focusing on the state of Scotland's smaller breweries in the aftermath of the acquisition of Arran Brewery from its administrators by an investment firm, Marketing Management Services. In the last ten years a scene that boasted fewer than ten breweries now boasts 52 with a resulting increase in choice and also serves as a neat example of where we find the larger world of craft beer:
Visitors to Scotland, big consumers of locally produced beers, now have between 400 and 500 differently labelled bottles to chose from, compared with around 20 in the late 1990s.
Correct me if I am wrong but hasn't the whole history of industrial brewing, including the whole micro-brewing movement since the 1970s, has been one of cyclical boom and bust, waves of mergers followed by regeneration from the grass roots? Despite these comings and goings, there are always home brewers with bigger dreams as well as beer lovers with the desire for career changes despite the hard work and risks involved. Is this economic phase in Scotland - and the rest of the world it may be merely illustrating - any different?
I am not inclined to think so. Compared to a lot of sectors of the economy it may seem to have a vulnerability but it also appears to be pretty robust. Why? Well, it is not like beer is going out of style. Whatever happens, there is a huge market for beer whether as societies we like to think of it or not. We are not entering a phase of abstinence as far as I can tell. Plus new beers - at least at the edges of craft and innovation - are consistently being sought out by consumers for their novelty as well as value. Brewers restructure and invent to attract and thereby survive. Isn't such change an inherent part of the vitality of the economic sector as well as what makes it interesting to the average beer hound?
Do we diminish the importance of this hardscrabble life of the brewer to we the contented consumer? Is it too cruel or too cheeky to point out that sometimes the forest has to burn to keep itself vital? Sometimes when I think about what is next in beer - and in life, I suppose - I know it won't be what is here now.
July 01, 2008
23:18
West End Brewing Company As Seen In Utica
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Reader and prize-winner Chad forwarded me some pictures from a visit to F.X. Matt in Utica to check out the place and give the brewery some support after their near calamitous fire in late May. I like this one the best. The brewery was called the West End Brewing Company in 1888 and appears to be the third name for the operation after the now more familiar F.X. Matt and Saranac monikers.
12:58
Happy Canada Day - Don't Forget To Drink Your Beer
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It's a funny thing about beer and Canada. Canadians have this relationship to beer that is based entirely around the idea - largely erroneous - that our beer is better. So much so that it becomes a principle of our national existence as this article reminds us:
The poll, broken down into demographic categories, asked 3,114 Canadians coast to coast to coast to list in order of importance the 101 symbols people feel best represent Canada. Not surprisingly, the Maple Leaf was No. 1, hockey No. 2, the flag three. Locally, the answers reflected those findings. However, there were some different findings. "Beer," said Gerry Paris, of Windsor, who was walking downtown wearing a new Maple Leaf flag T-shirt purchased for $6. "I like Canadian beer.... I consider myself patriotic."
Never mind that the three largest national brewers - Labatt, Molson and Sleemans - are now Brazilio-Belgian, American and Japanese respectively or that (as is the case everywhere I suppose) what is most proudly consumed tastes pretty much like every other macro lager on the planet. Doesn't matter. We love our beer and are defined by it in a way that can sometimes seem a bit like an American's association with the work of the founding fathers. But note what Larry is drinking on this maple-esque day of days.
So wherever you are today, like Larry, hoist a macro-lager in honour of our national obsession with macro-lagers and wear some read and white, wouldja?
June 29, 2008
12:47
Following My Bliss In Oswego, New York
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Have I mentioned I really dislike the idea of following your passion? It's so much based on the immediate and the result. "Follow your passion" is what people are told to entice them into entry position IT jobs that never pan out or pull out the credit card to act on the next spontaneous urge. And it smacks of no respect for idleness. No, bliss is the thing. That cooler draw on the heart. The stuff of naps and toes playing in the tidal zone. The part of you that puts mild ahead of extreme double imperial IPA every time. It was a big day. Out the door at eight with one kid to collect another after their first stay-over. The promise of treats for all was a key leverage tactic. I felt like Ron dragging the kids around - but instead of Brussels, I got to go to Oswego, NY, home of C's Farm Market and King Arthur's brewpub.
When we got to C's a little past eleven, I finally got to meet the blissed out (and maybe, OK, even passionate about beer) Dave and Maria who I have been emailing but missing the face to face on for a few years now. A while ago, they have taken the family fruit market and added a beer selection - then they discovered craft and have kept discovering. What I saw yesterday was easily a doubling of shelf space to fine beer with more focus compared to 2006 on US craft than imports. Peaches were placed in the hands of kids as we talked about the trade and their market. They were happy to report that they have seen a matching increase in sales and even mentioned that there was a happy gang from the Ottawa area that seemed to make the trip two or three times a year to full up the trunk. I left with 54 bottles of various sizes and strengths to replenish the stash including the new-to-me brews like Collaboration not Litigation as well as Old Ploughshare Stout and Red Sky At Night saison from Baltimore's Clipper City. Future plans include tasting sessions starting in the fall. Sadly, under NY state law you need a special license for growler pours and they don't issue them any more so that dream may have to wait for a while.
Also maybe a little sadly, things looked like they were not as busy over at King Arthur's, one of my favorite brewpubs in terms of comfortable design, river mouth location and in-house mic

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